Skills NSW

Simplify finding a funded course and identifying an appropriate provider

With Skills training being a major focus of state and federal governments following the pandemic, there was a need to present government funded courses to the public in a highly consumable manner, such that simple choices could be made to find the right course and identify an appropriate provider. An initial concept design for a skills comparison tool had been created by the Department, however this needed to be expanded across applicable user journeys to present a cohesive experience for endorsement and alignment within the Department.

Process: Co-design to gain alignment and program velocity

While the comparison tool functionality formed the basis of the proposed website, additional user journeys needed to be defined and considered as part of delivering an appropriate solution for the first public release. The Boomworks Pilot Accelerator program was used to rapidly progress the concept. A series of co-design sessions were completed with stakeholders to create user journey and navigational pathway definitions based on available data sources and integration opportunities with other systems.

To build a broader view around the proposed user journeys, a detailed comparative analysis was undertaken to help identify best practices around visualisation of course comparison data and layouts. Following this, remote workshops were conducted to enable the recruitment of participants across a wide range of geographic areas as well as social and cultural differences. A focus of the workshops centred around gathering key information such as: Relevant industry data, cohort specific content needs, course and provider comparison data and search behaviours. The initial ‘Proof of Concept’ release created from the program not only provided a user validated concept but also provided significant data for the ongoing development roadmap.

Outcome: Ongoing design and delivery to support the roadmap

With the success of the Proof of Concept, backed by the user research and validation process, a twelve-month program of ongoing design and delivery was undertaken. With concurrent UX research further informing the delivery roadmap, an agile development program was utilised to progressively release new content and feature requirements to better support the Skills program and evolution. This included a migration of the code base from the proof of concept framework into Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Commerce where applicable.